If you drive south on US16 from Rapid City you may notice new construction at the Mystic Ranger District Office near Catron Boulevard. Nice to see our money at work. Too bad about all the cars in the employee parking lot.
For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to find out exactly how many government employees it takes to manage the Black Hills National Forest. This is not easy. Even locating all of the USFS facilities is like an Easter egg hunt. In Custer, for instance, there is a compound just north of town on US 385. It is nestled back in the trees off the highway, just to the South of the Cemetery. Then there’s an office in town. There’s another facility of some sort south of town. Who knows what else is out there?
I mention this because it seems that wherever you go, you see another forest service facility with a parking lot packed with employee cars or USFS vehicles.
But this is an agency that constantly claims to be short of manpower.
I would disagree. I think they have way, way too many employees who don’t have enough to do so they make work for themselves by enforcing silly rules. If Congress is serious about cutting government bloat, here’s where they can start. The government needs to fire about 80% of this USFS dead wood, sell off a bunch of buildings and trucks and get off our backs.
It’s time to make these USFS drones get real jobs.
